Tag: jim engh

The developmental timeline of Reynolds Lake Oconee (formerly Reynolds Plantation) is a little like the biological evolution of the human species. As time passes, organisms (in this case, golf courses) multiply, establishing themselves in their surroundings while slowly developing complexity surpassing previous versions. Eventually they become highly specialized within the context of their ecosystem until, finally, they’re advanced to…

Ron Whitten has been one of the most prominent and influential voices in golf course architecture since the mid-1980’s when he became Golf Digest’s architecture editor. He created the current criteria for the magazine’s popular (or, depending, notorious) Top 100 U.S & World Courses lists, has written various books including the essential compendium, “The Architects of…

Noted golf course architect and past winner of Golf Digest’s Architect of the Year Award Jim Engh calls in to talk to Derek Duncan about the concept of image creation, pushing the envelop in his designs, the eureka moment that led him to pursue his bold style of golf holes, chasing an endorphine rush on…

Going around Red Hawk Ridge you can see the ideas and embryonic elements of the shapes and playability motifs that Jim Engh would further develop in the early 2000’s at a number of nationally acclaimed courses that launched him into the upper orbit of golf architecture. Built in 1999 in Castle Rock, just south of Denver, Red Hawk Ridge is a more modest…

The question of how to shape courses in mountains or heavily wooded properties is an interesting one. Beyond engineering issues like cuts and fills that all courses of this variety share, every architect since golf courses moved inland has had to make decisions about how to present unnatural sites, including what the shapes and depths…